vanya

What is intersex?

“The term intersex is an umbrella term that refers to people who have one or more of a range of variations in sex characteristics that fall outside of traditional conceptions of male or female bodies. For example, intersex people may have variations in their chromosomes, genitals, or internal organs like testes or ovaries. Some intersex characteristics are identified at birth, while other people may not discover they have intersex traits until puberty or later in life. ” -InterACT

This includes both primary and secondary sex characteristics such as hormones, genitalia, and chromosomes that fall outside of what is typically considered “male” or “female.”

Examples of intersex conditions include CAH (Congenital adrenal hyperplasia), AIS (androgen insensitivity syndrome), Klinfelter Syndrome, and PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)

Are intersex people trans?

Some intersex people are trans, and some aren’t. Most intersex people are still assigned a gender at birth, and many intersex people who are raised as one gender and then later identify as another gender identify with the label trans. Intersex people can be cis or trans just like any other group of people.

Many intersex people have complicated relationships with gender, and don’t feel like labels like cis or trans really fit their experiences. For this reason, terms like intergender and ipsogender were coined.

Transphobia and intersexism (prejudice against intersex people) often have a lot of overlap as well. 

What is intersex activism? 

Intersex activism is currently focused mainly on ending unconsenusal surgery at birth on intersex children, and guaranteeing the rights for bodily autonomy for intersex people. Nonconsensual genital mutilation is regularly performed on intersex babies to forcibly assign us a gender at birth. Intersex activists like Pidgeon Pagonis, Sean Saifa Wall, and groups like InterAct are working to get hospitals to end intersex surgery. So far only two hospitals nationwide have come out against intersex surgery, and intersex activism really needs more widespread support. We deserve to live life free from human rights abuses and be able to take agency over what happens to our body and what medical choices we want to make.  

What can you do to support intersex people?

Educate yourself! Check out our resources page for a list of links to intersex organizations and information. 

Support and build solidarity with the intersex community and activists. We really need allies to boost our voices!

Listen and learn from us, and call out intersexism when you see it. 

Celebrate intersex people! Intersex is BEAUTIFUL and we are allowed to be proud! 

let yourself live. let yourself love, or if you don’t love, don’t! let yourself feel attraction, romantic or sexual, or let yourself notice the lack of those things. let yourself find people attractive without hastening to stick a label in what you’re feeling, let yourself breathe before putting yourself in a box.

let yourself live. let yourself experience masculinity or femininity or both or neither, let yourself feel what gender you are. let yourself notice a gendered feeling or a lack of one, let yourself notice and live and laugh and go through your day, notice if your gender is fluid or fluctuates or if it doesn’t, if it’s there or if it’s male and female or something else entirely.

i’m not saying that you shouldn’t use labels, of course—if you find a label you think fits you, an umbrella term or a micro label, go for it, use it for yourself! if you find something that fits you, that’s awesome, and i’m so happy for you!

i’m not against labels, i just felt the need to say that you do not have to rush to label yourself. let yourself experience gender/sexuality and if you don’t immediately have a label, that’s fine, and if you think you’re never going to label it, that’s awesome!

it’s okay to not have a label. its okay to have a hard time finding a label. it’s okay to use umbrella terms. it’s okay to not know what you are, and not label yourself. 

“I’m a therapist and keep this poster in my waiting room, apparently it’s saved a few lives.”

I don’t like the phrase “a cry for help.” I just don’t like how it sounds. When somebody says to me, “I’m thinking about suicide. I have a plan: I just need a reason not to do it,” the last thing I see is helplessness.

I think your depression has been beating you up for years. It’s called you ugly, and stupid, and pathetic, and a failure, for so long that you’ve forgotten that it’s wrong. You don’t see any good in yourself, and you don’t have any hope.

But still here you are: you’ve come over to me, banged on my door and said, “HEY! Staying alive is REALLY HARD right now! Just give me something to fight with! I don’t care if it’s a stick! Give me a stick and I can stay alive!”

How is that helpless? I think that’s incredible. You’re like a marine: trapped for years behind enemy lines. Your gun has been taken away, you’re out of ammo, you’re malnourished, and you’ve probably caught some kind of jungle virus that’s making you hallucinate giant spiders.

And you’re still just going, “GIVE ME A STICK. I’M NOT DYING OUT HERE.” “A cry for help” makes it sound like I’m supposed to take pity on you, but you don’t need my pity. This isn’t pathetic. This is the will to survive. This is how humans lived long enough to become the dominant species.

With NO hope, running on NOTHING, you’re ready to cut through a hundred miles of hostile jungle with nothing but a stick, if that’s what it takes to get to safety.

All I’m doing is handing out sticks.

“Why are you so lazy?”

But you’re not lazy. Lazy is when you shrug things off because you can’t summon up the give-a-damn. When you’re curled up tight on your chair, at your desk, alone and grey and desperately wishing that you had your life in order, that you did all those things that you had to do, that it didn’t feel like breaking rocks just to feed and clothe yourself and get some sleep, that’s not lazy.

People don’t understand. You tell them “It’s Hard.” They tell you, “No it isn’t. You’re just lazy.”

You start to wonder if they’re right. Is breaking those rocks easy for everyone else? Are they that much stronger than you? They don’t look like they’re struggling. “Just try harder,” they say. But you’re trying. It’s not working. Breaking boulders in your path until you’re spent isn’t lazy, and you do it day after day.

You’re not lazy. Most people don’t have those rocks to break.They don’t even know what it’s like to have to break rocks to get things done. They don’t understand how hard you have to work, and how hopeless you feel, when you try and fail to do what they do easily. Things hard harder for you, they really are. And if those people had to deal with your problems they wouldn’t be doing any better.

You’re not lazy. You’re not weak. You’re fighting hard. I guess I just want you to know that I know that.”

I know things are hard right now. 

You’re going to be okay, but it might take a while. It might be scary, and you might want to give up. 

Don’t give up. You can do this. Things won’t be this way forever. 

One day, you’re going to be so proud of yourself.